Product Description

The massive dams of the American West were designed to serve multiple purposes: improving navigation, irrigating crops, storing water, controlling floods, and generating hydroelectricity. Their construction also put thousands of people to work during the Great Depression. Only later did the dams' baneful effects on river ecologies spark public debate.

Big Dams of the New Deal Era tells how major water-storage structures were erected in four western river basins. David P. Billington and Donald C. Jackson reveal how engineering science, regional and national politics, perceived public needs, and a river's natural features intertwined to create distinctive dams within each region. In particular, the authors describe how two federal agencies, the Army Corps of Engineers and the Bureau of Reclamation, became key players in the creation of these important public works.

Richly illustrated, Big Dams of the New Deal Era offers a compelling account of how major dams in the New Deal era restructured the landscape--both politically and physically--and why American society in the 1930s embraced them wholeheartedly.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #321123 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 369 pages

About the Author
David P. Billington, a Fellow of the National Academy of Engineering, is Gordon Y. S. Wu Professor of Engineering at Princeton University. Donald C. Jackson, Professor of History at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, is the author of Building the Ultimate Dam: John S. Eastwood and the Control of Water in the West.

Customer Reviews

The how and why of massive dams during New Deal era
This book has just recently been published, and given the renewed controversy over whether or not to dismantle some dams in the U.S., it is a must read for those interested in how and why massive dams were constructed during the New Deal era. Focusing on the building of major dams in four western river basins-the Colorado, Columbia, Missouri, and Sacramento-San Joaquin-the authors provide an explanation of how engineering science, regional and national politics, perceived public needs, and the affected rivers' natural features combined to create the dams and restructure the political and physical landscape during the 1930's and '40s. This book makes for fascinating reading about the building of the American West's mammoth dams.

Not quite what I anticipated
I'm an engineer who lives in the Pacific Northwest. I was hoping for more focus on the engineering than the book actually has. Instead, it seems like something of a synthesis book. A little bit of engineering, a little bit of history, and a lot of politics within and between the Army Corps Of Engineers and the Bureau Of Reclamation.

In fact, I ended up finding the pre- New Deal chapters to be the most interesting. Once the actual New Deal dams were discussed, I felt the dams themselves got short shrift compared to the Washington DC politics.

A 'must have' acquisition
BIG DAMS OF THE NEW DEAL ERA: A CONFLUENCE OF ENGINEERING AND POLITICS provides a history of the design and construction of the American West's biggest dams and as such is an important key to understanding the growth and development of the West as a whole. College-level collections will readily find this a 'must have' acquisition, whether they're buying for engineering students, or those studying the evolution and development of the West as a whole: chapters survey engineering science, local politics, public needs, and how these damn were constructed.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch